A MOTORWAY services manager who groped a 16-year-old girl at a job interview was allowed to keep his job – because he was hard-working.

Bilal Sarwar, 27, admitted sexually assaulting the girl when left alone with her during an interview, in which he tucked in her T-shirt and groped her crotch.

Sarwar was handed a four-month jail term, suspended for two years, at Chelmsford crown court and placed on the sex offender’s register for seven years.

But Judge David Turner QC said it was “extraordinary” Sarwar, of Holloway, North London, had not been sacked for the “disgraceful, sordid groping” at the Birchanger Green services on the M11 in Stansted, Essex.

A spokesman for his employer, Welcome Break, which had allowed Sarwar to keep working due to his strong “work ethic” last night said he had been suspended.